America Goes French - Again!?

Food and Politics?

Since Alexis de Tocqueville, the French have best understood America. The possible exception to this is Asimov.?

McDonald’s provides a prime example supporting my contention. After years of experimentation, this iconic American fast-food provider has adopted the brioche (pronounced Bree-osh):

Wall Street Journal: No More Dry Burgers: McDonald’s Overhauls Its Biggest Item

In the heated competition for hamburger dominance, the fast-food chain has spent seven years making over its signature offering. McDonald’s decided it’s had enough with dry patties and squishy buns. For the past seven years, the chain that made its name on burgers has been on a quest to improve its signature offering.

The changes are now rolling out in the U.S., including on?its Big Mac. ?The two all-beef patties are cooked in smaller batches for a more uniform sear. There’s more special sauce. The lettuce, cheese and pickles have been rethought to be fresher and meltier, and the bun is now a buttery brioche, with the sesame seeds more randomly scattered for a homemade look.

The more than 50 tweaks on its burgers add up to the Chicago-based company’s biggest upgrades in decades to its core menu. With increased competition in the burger market—especially from?higher-end, fast-casual burger chains ?such as Five Guys—executives decided to revamp some of the industrial-scale techniques that have produced cheap, uniform burgers. In some cases, McDonald’s is reviving practices it scrapped long ago in a push for efficiency.?

Issuu:? Brioche . . . Just saying the word conjures up visions of sitting in a sophisticated Parisian café, leisurely drinking fragrant coffee and nibbling on its light, buttery goodness. Pronounced, Bree-osh, this soft, lightly sweet treat is where bread meets pastry and is transformed into something extra-special—a versatile loaf that can elevate every meal of the day.

Like regular bread, brioche contains flour, yeast, water and salt. But it is also enriched with eggs (sometimes extra yolks), milk and butter. These higher-fat ingredients give it its richness. Sometimes a bit of sugar and a dash of vanilla are added. An egg wash is usually brushed on the outside, creating a golden crust. The result is a soft, flakey texture, and a rich, mouth-watering flavour.

My Comment:?Another dramatic example of the French influence on American taste is LVMH’s use of Morgan Freeman:

to market Laurent Perrier’s Grand Siècle Champagne:

in Travel and Leisure and other magazines that cater to American aspirations.?

Laurent Perrier was Queen Elizabeth’s favorite spirit and LVMH’s Eau Sauvage is referred to in Prince Harry’s The Spare. What ties all this together is the fact that LVMH is privately owned and managed by the family:?

The Arnaults own and manage LVMH- Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. They also own Bulgari, Tiffany’s, Sephora and many other marquee luxury brands. The family has brilliantly placed Sephora in Kohl’s stores to meet the aspirations of American women.?

Organizational Management, Maslow and The Maya Angelou Factor?

Forbes:? Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. He proposed that humans have five tiers of needs: top level/self-actualization, fourth level/esteem, third level/love and belonging, second level/safety needs, and bottom level/physiological needs like food and shelter. Maslow posits that humans are most motivated to fill the needs on the bottom tier first, then move up as each new level of needs is met.?

My Comment: Maslow was one of the iconic founders of Organizational Management. One of his experiments involved changing the color of factory walls to see which color resulted in greater productivity. They all did! The attention given the worker satisfied one level in their hierarchy of needs.?

Update

The Maya Angelou Factor updates Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. This extraordinary poet expressed her profound understanding of the human culture and of American culture with On the Pulse of the Morning at Bill Clinton’s inauguration.?

Education

Every class that I delivered during 10 years of teaching International Business and Logistics at Hofstra and Baruch was evaluated and commented on by my students and my peers at the end of each semester. I’ve kept the written student evaluations for inspiration. They all say the same thing by writing: We will never forget your stories and how they made us feel.?Their comments paraphrase Maya Angelou. In the Information Age, in the Age when video games are delivered with graphics that students view with rapt attention, so must subjects of both the most vital and trivial importance (like French Fries)?be delivered in this way.

Back to the Future?

In?Democracy in America,?

a young Alexis de Tocqueville?

praised the socio-political psychology of Americans by what he observed in his travels. In contrast with what he had experienced during his travels in France and Europe, the young de Tocqueville exhorted his observations of America as evidence of?"a great passion for equality."

Regrettably, de Tocqueville’s observations of America in 1831-1832, during which time he was sent to study America’s prisons as they were deemed to be progressive, particularly when compared to the Bastille, are no longer factual as Jesse Jackson explained.

Continued